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Beautiful People Doing Stupid Things

Roles
  • Lead Developer
Company/Client
  • Columbia Sportswear,
  • Transistor Studios

As part of the largest and most integrated global marketing campaign in Columbia’s history, the Omni-Heat design emphasized cinematic seamlessness as users navigated through product shots and videos of incredibly attractive people engaging in humorous, exaggerated activities.

The Client

Columbia Sportswear is a globally recognized leader in outdoor apparel and gear, known for its commitment to innovation, quality, and performance. Established in 1938 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Columbia Sportswear has a rich heritage of equipping outdoor enthusiasts with the tools they need to explore and thrive in the great outdoors.

New modes of interacting with content

One of the greatest things about Flash was how easy it made it to develop designs that moved beyond the page-based model of interaction.

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Experience design as part of a multichannel global strategy

To highlight the benefits of this groundbreaking advancement in outdoor apparel, Columbia launched an innovative global ad campaign as revolutionary as Omni-Heat itself. The marketing strategy included print, online, web broadcast, social media, and event marketing, all designed to introduce Omni-Heat to the public in an interactive and engaging manner.

Omniheat in action

Integrated multimedia content was a core component of the design strategy.

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Beautiful people...

...doing stupid things.

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Omniheat in action

Integrated multimedia content was a core component of the design strategy.

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The Digital Experience

At the heart of the campaign was the website, where Butler, Shine, Stern, and Partners produced a series of hilarious videos featuring Olympic athletes in ridiculous situations. Like laying half-naked in the snow making snow angels. Because why not?

A global campaign

The interaction design made heavy use of video. The template we developed for the video assets used shared intros and outros to produce a seamless flow from scene to scene. It also streamlined production by allowing designers to use automated workflows when rendering.

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A seamless experience

I integrated the visual designs created by Transistor Studios with Columbia’s content to deliver an experience that framed the absurdity of the situations with equally over-the-top interaction design. This included elements like rotating globes, creeping ice ages, and giant freezers, all contributing to seamless navigation and transition effects that maintained the narrative flow.

Multichannel experience

The digital property supported the in-person experience by integrating with an event feed managed by content admins.

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Supporting the narrative

The design strategy reinforced the narrative of freezing cold at every chance, even when loading assets. Multiple preloading schemes were used. Here, multiple video layers updated as the load progressed. The jacket unzipped and the icy overlay progressively thawed.

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The Freezer Tour

One of the most memorable elements of the campaign was the Freezer Tour, where consumers were invited to test Omni-Heat products while singing karaoke in The Coldfessional—a large freezer simulating some of the coldest places on earth.